

The teammate AI, which has modifications from FIFA 08 (obviously, with no penalty kicks or corners to worry about, EA programmed the CPU to showboat a bit), is pretty sharp. It's all in place to build up your Gamebreaker, which you can only fill by taking a shot on goal once you've performed enough tricks. With a button tap, you can do flicks and juggling moves. With a flick of the right stick you can perform feints and other tricks with more ease than in traditional soccer titles. The trick system coalesces well with soccer gameplay. Although it's missing familiar controls from traditional FIFA, like slide tackles and through passes, it feels really intuitive for anyone who's played FIFA games for years. The controls jell in a way that prior FS titles hadn't.

There's little argument that FS3 is a handsome game, and the soundtrack matches up with the rest of the presentation, from electro house beats to Brazilian baile funk. They're very colorful and aesthetically pleasing. The environments, from a Middle Eastern oil rig to a pitch on top of a Tokyo rooftop, are also as stylized as the players. The animation is good but not always great on the PS3 version, while the Xbox 360 game mostly runs at 60 frames per second and looks quite exceptional. They're not as exaggerated as Team Fortress 2, but they're designed within three character styles (tall and lanky, athletic, and stocky), which fit cover stars Peter Crouch, Ronaldinho, and Gennaro Gattuso and give you a quick visual reference when you're on the pitch.

The game's 250 players (from 18 countries, mostly European) have all been retooled into stylized caricatures of themselves, which works well for the game. Visually, it's striking beyond simply its crisp HD graphics. FIFA Street 3's formula is a Frankenstein of the core gameplay that made NBA Street Homecourt a winner and the sharp AI in FIFA 08 that helped sculpt that game's improved experience.įS3 is a departure from its mediocre lineage in more than one way. It's not a consistently great game, but it's got flashes of brilliant fun that overcome its limited play options. After two efforts as misguided as Wayne Rooney's stomp on Carvalho in the last World Cup, EA Sports BIG has managed to put one in the net. FIFA Street 3 is the first good game in the franchise.
